Due to their immediacy and paper substrate, Saunders refers to his recent works as drawings. They are however oil sketches on photosensitive paper that are then submerged into photo chemicals. The oil, which lifts overtime, functions as a resist against the developer, creating surprisingly nuanced and multi-tonal images—the both planned and improvised results of mixing oil and water. Saunders first experimented with the technique last summer while at home in Berlin, seeking a renewed physical connection to what can otherwise be thought of as his ethereal practice. He later returned to it during the pandemic while at home in Cambridge, MA.


Saunders' relates the choreography of his materials to rolling a marble around in a tray, or to collaborating with something beyond control. Drawing from memory, photographs, and the ever-present media for his subjects, Saunders works reveal a constant awareness during this time, of as he writes, "presence, bodies, and a kind of solitude."